The Dinner

a novel

Hardcover, 292 pages

English language

Published Dec. 17, 2013 by Hogarth.

ISBN:
978-0-7704-3785-5
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OCLC Number:
1031963179

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4 stars (2 reviews)

On a summer evening in Amsterdam, two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. At first, the conversation is a gentle hum of polite small talk - the banality of work, the latest movies they've seen. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.

Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act - an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. When the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner is an internationally bestselling …

2 editions

Review of 'The Dinner' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

people who hate this book may be reacting to the morals of the characters (who, yes, are horrible) instead of the skill with which the author lays out the plot. the stilted way the narrator talks reminds you continually that this is not a book set in our country, in our culture. we (the readers) lend the narrator a larger (than usual) portion of empathy as we try to settle into his life and HIS cadence for telling his story. and so we write off his quirkiness as cultural, and not mental illness, and so the first trap of the unreliable narrator is set.

another comment people have made is how shallow the story/characters are. but I would argue this is intentional for a variety of reasons. the narrator's over-sensitivity to the privacy of his son and his wife is continually demonstrated, and makes it difficult for the reader to …

avatar for Mduritz@lectura.social

rated it

4 stars

Subjects

  • Families
  • Fiction

Places

  • Netherlands
  • Amsterdam (Netherlands)